Motorola Tells Customers to "Buy Elsewhere" if They Want Custom Roms

This is a discussion on Motorola Tells Customers to "Buy Elsewhere" if They Want Custom Roms within the Android News forums, part of the Android.net category; posted by Preach2k on DroidForums, as found on Droid Life:
Motorola Tells Customer to “Buy Elsewhere” if They Want Custom ROMs
Motorola has taken a ...

Motorola Tells Customers to "Buy Elsewhere" if They Want Custom Roms

Motorola has taken a strong stance against rooting and custom ROMs, but a remark that popped up this week from their YouTube account manager is somewhat shocking. When the subject of avoiding the new Atrix 4G because of a potentially locked bootloader was brought up in the comments of one of their new ads, they responded with a not exactly positive and basically said anyone who is wanting to feel like the real owner of their device, to look “elsewhere.”Here is the Tweet:

@tdcrooks if you want to do custom roms, then﻿ buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks. – motorola 2 days ago

LOL. I agree. But I had no doubt that they were going to do this. I hope somebody cracks the Atrix and Bionic wide open... from the bootloader level! (BTW... Anyone know if the Milestone is still "un-cracked"?)

personally, i find this to be a disappointing attitude coming from a company that was on the verge of obsolescence not too long ago. but, unfortunately, the population of rooted users, installing custom roms, makes up but a fraction of their customer base. so, they can "afford" to take such a hard-line attitude.

but what i don't understand is the rationale. they say they are locking their bootloaders because it is "what works." that implies that an unlocked bootloader doesn't "work" (meaning that it somehow hurts Moto). the D1, with its open system, has hardly "hurt" Moto. in fact, i would say the opposite - the D1 put Moto back on the map. i'm not saying there is a direct correlation between the success of the D1 and the fact that it's bootloader is unlocked. but, the success of the D1 certainly counters against any argument that an open bootloader somehow doesn't "work" for Moto.

i'm still holding out hope that the Bionic (and rumored Solana) will allow for installation of custom roms. i've seen it hypothesized that because the dual core T2 is relatively new for Moto mobile devices, it will most likely be unable to effectively lock the OS down. i have no way to confirm or rebut this hypothesis, but it would seem to make some sense. or maybe it's just because it's what i want to hear...

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